Recalling Alfred Hitchcock's visit

Published 1:00 am, Saturday, April 29, 2006

The New Haven coach train rolled into the Danbury railroad station and Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary director, climbed aboard carrying a large bass fiddle.

But Hitchcock was not on his way to Norwalk or New Haven. The only place the master of suspense was riding was straight into movie history and Danbury lore.

The year was 1950 and Hitchcock was getting on the New Haven line train in Danbury as part of a scene for his new thriller "Strangers on a Train." His brief appearance was the famous director's cameo he made near the beginning of each picture.

Hitchcock, who died 26 years ago today, filmed scenes for "Strangers On A Train" at the old Danbury railroad station and at Heim's, a long-since-closed Main Street record store.

In the film, Danbury is renamed Metcalf and the Danbury rail station and the surrounding area can be seen in several scenes.
Robert Burks
was nominated for an Academy Award for his black and white cinematography for the 1951 film.

"Quite a few people comment on it when they come here," said
Gerry Herrmann
, reference and research co-chair at the museum. "People go, 'Oh look, "Strangers On A Train," was filmed here.' "

More than a half century since its release, the film "Strangers On a Train," still resonates with modern audiences.

In a recent phone interview from her home in West Lake Village outside of Los Angeles, Calif., Pat Hitchcock, 77, Alfred Hitchcock's daughter talked about "Strangers on a Train," and the enduring popularity of her father's work.

"He made movies to entertain the audience, he did not make them for himself, and audiences over the years do not change," said Hitchcock, who has a small role in the film.

Pat Hitchcock's scenes were filmed in Hollywood, so she did not come to Danbury. However, she did share some insights about working with her father. Hitchcock was known for using small towns as a backdrop for his movies.

"He knew exactly what he wanted and he would be able to tell you that, so it was easy," she said.

As for "Strangers on a Train," Pat Hitchcock said one of the major pluses of being in the film was working with actor
Robert Walker
, who died shortly after the film was completed. "We all loved working with Robert Walker; he was a very good actor."

She added that "it was a very pleasant movie to make."

The murderous plot of the movie is far from pleasant, though. It is based on a 1949 novel by
Patricia Highsmith
.

Two men meet on a train and one of them,
Bruno Anthony
(Robert Walker) suggests to tennis star
Guy Haines
(played by
Farley Granger
) that they "swap murders" by each killing the people who are making the other person's life miserable, making the crimes unsolvable. Guy doesn't really agree to it, but Bruno goes through with the plan. What results is the type of suspenseful mayhem that only Alfred Hitchcock could create.

Peter McLachlan
, 67, one of the founders of the Danbury Railway Museum, and locomotive engineer from 1956 until he retired in 1998, remembered driving past the station in his parents' car, when he was around 13 and seeing crowds of people and a big searchlight and a camera set up.

After the movie came out McLachlan, a lifelong area resident, said, "Everybody would come down and look at the gutter" where Walker's character drops an incriminating cigarette lighter down a storm drain and then tries desperately to fish it out.

From the film, the gutter scene appears to take place right in front of the Danbury Railway Station. However, according to Herrmann, the scene was most likely filmed on a Hollywood set. Movie trivia buffs know that Hitchcock himself chose the various bits of trash placed in the drain.

Joe Strucky
, 75, who was about 16 during the filming, recalled that some of the girls in the crowd had scissors in their hands and were trying to get close to movie-star handsome Farley Granger to cut a lock of his black curly hair.

"Farley Granger was one big thing," said Strucky, who was born in Danbury, lived in Bethel for a time and now lives back in Danbury.

Rita Zwerdling
, then in eighth grade, went to the station with a couple of friends.

"We were thrilled out of our minds," said Zwerdling, in a phone interview from Berkeley, Calif., where she is a Realtor.

Carrying a cheap Brownie camera, Zwerdling was able to get up close to the action and started taking pictures. Zwerdling said that it was "a little bit cordoned off but not that heavily. These days no one would get within camera shot."

Zwerdling was close enough to see Hitchcock, who she said, "looked just like he did in the pictures."

For years she saved the black and white photos. In the mid-1990s she gave copies of the pictures to the Danbury Railway Museum. Today the pictures form a central part of the museum's "Strangers On A Train" exhibit. The pictures are shown in a large glass display case alongside several promotional pictures and a small duplicate of the film's poster.

Over the years the members of the museum have done a lot of detective work to figure out what scenes were filmed where. Herrmann said it was originally believed that the amusement park scenes were filmed at the Danbury Fair grounds. However, Herrmann said this was not the case, and although he is not certain, he said those scenes might have been filmed at a park in Sacramento, Calif.

As for the film itself, those who witnessed its making had only praise.

"It was a fantasy plot, but could really happen," said McLachlan, who added that he watches the film whenever he sees it on TV.

"It's one of my all-time favorite movies," said Zwerdling.

The "Strangers On A Train," DVD and video are on sale at the Danbury Railway Museum at 120 White St. You can visit the museum Web site at
http://www.danbury.org/drm